Cowboys to Benefit From Home Advantage Against Packers

This is a game of so many uncertainties that even most bookmakers haven’t made their mind up.

The Packers offense is banged up but three key parts are all maybes, if Aaron Rogers were to play and one of Lacy and Cobb I fancy GB every time, but with Flynn most likely under centre and Lacy struggling I give it to Dallas. The Cowboys are in disarray but are desperate, and at home, like a cornered rat.

The thing people seem to be ignoring is that the Packers simply aren’t that good. There may not be another team in football, hell any sport in the world, that is so reliant on one player. Since Rogers got hurt the Packers have lost four and drawn one of their games, with a one point win over the 3-10 Falcons on Sunday finally breaking the ignominious record and landing them at 6-6-1 going in to this week.

The Cowboys simply have to win, in fact they have to win their next three games to make the playoffs. The problem now, following a wild weekend in the NFC wildacrd race, means the four spots are wide open.

Dallas are expected to be favoured by a touchdown, and in what I see as a shootout I wouldn’t back against that.

The 9-4 Bengals put together an impressive performance against the maddeningly inconsistent Colts last week, with the dual threat running attack of Gio Bernard and BenJarvus Green-Ellis (a.k.a the Law Firm) dicing up a butter soft Colts. Andy Dalton also looked brilliant. No I mean it. Dalton threw with touch and was accurate throwing down field. Yeah we all think we could do a job throwing to AJ Green on that Colts secondary, but seriously Dalton was impressive, ending with a passer rating of 120.5 and three TD tosses and no interceptions.

Now this is where the gambler in me sees Dalton inevitably having a stinker against the Steelers, and in the past that is the way I would pick it, but this Steelers team don’t fill me with confidence and Cincinnati look like they are hitting stride at the right time. They have lots of weapons and I see them rolling past Pittsburgh. The Steelers are the 25th worst team against the run this season in terms of yardage, if the Bengals dynamic duo can get at it again they should be able to dominate the ball and hit their big time receivers enough to score on the Steelers.

Pittsburgh are 1-3 point underdogs at the time of writing and although that looks tasty against the maddening Bengals, Pittsburgh are all but out of the playoff race. Mike Tomlin’s teams never let off the gas but all a win would do would deflate the Bengals (yay) and help the rival Ravens (boo), a pretty lose lose week for the Steelers really and I would take the Bengals by a score.